On a summer day 175 years ago, five women met for tea in upstate New York — a seemingly innocuous affair. That is until the conversation turned toward their lack of rights.

History now honors these women for igniting a movement that would revolutionize the republic by securing women’s right to an education , own property, and vote in elections. Their demands were highly controversial in 1848, even outlandish, but were made possible because of the constitutional right to speak freely .

The women’s movement is just one example of free speech’s essential role in the legal and social progress of historically disadvantaged groups. In fact, the First Amendment has been at the core of every major civil rights movement, enabling minority and dissident voices to speak out and secure rights denied to them.

Despite these successes, there is a tendency to downplay and even disparage free speech’s impact on social reform. In fact, free speech is increasingly viewed as risky, even though the status of racial, religious, sexual, and other minority groups has vastly improved under America’s free speech protections.

Yet the idea that speech restrictions are necessary to protect minority groups has taken hold in many institutions, thanks in large part to prominent academics who popularized the notion that certain groups could be harmed by free speech decades ago.

Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that an idea that started in the academy has now infiltrated it. According to a recent study by Gallup and Knight Foundation , more than 75% of college students think free speech and efforts to ensure diversity and inclusion “frequently” or “occasionally” come into conflict.

Further, nearly 25% of students say it is acceptable to use violence to shut down a controversial speaker — a number that rises to nearly 50% at several elite women’s colleges, according to a survey of the top 150 colleges in the United States. An environment in which beliefs such as these are the norm dissuades leaders, scholars, and influencers from engaging in open debate, presenting cutting-edge research, and expressing provocative ideas that encourage young people to form critical thinking skills.

Numerous high-profile incidents prove our academic institutions are hotbeds of controversy over free speech rather than seedbeds for new ideas and different perspectives.

For example, when a legal advocate from the American Civil Liberties Union began a presentation of students’ First Amendment rights at the College of William and Mary in 2017, protesters marched the stage, surrounded her, and shut her down, ending the event. Similarly, former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines was barricaded in a classroom by an angry mob that shouted her down at San Francisco State University earlier this year.

Whether one agrees with the goals or views of a social movement or speaker shouldn’t matter. The First Amendment is blind to race, color, creed, gender, and political affiliation. Individual flourishing may advance so long as citizens have the freedom to express their viewpoints, no matter how unconventional or unpopular they may be.

There is a real risk that the U.S. will follow other countries in restricting free expression in the name of equality. The prioritization of agenda-driven group goals over the right of individuals to think, speak, and listen to other viewpoints misconstrues free speech’s role in helping underrepresented groups attain equality. While laws in other countries that ban hate speech were well intentioned, over time, those in charge silenced the very voices those laws were meant to protect.

Five women sitting down for tea 175 years ago exercised their First Amendment rights to change the course of America and the world for the better. Our history has shown that free speech, not speech restrictions, is needed to enable equality, foster diversity and inclusion, protect the underrepresented, and allow society to progress.

Debi Ghate serves as the director of Voices for Liberty, an initiative of the Liberty and Law Center at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.